Chef Archive
Thread: Discussion: Quality of Buffs
If what you're saying is true about the quality not calculating in with the food, it may have a big effect on the crafted product. Or it's possible their cap on values per food, is way too low, in which quality and experimenting ain't doing enough. I'm sure they don't care enough to go over the chef code and check it out tho, heh 
Let me just say a few things about action-useage and regen stats:
I've tested this out, and the only way to decrease your action-pool useage noticibly is by having HUNDREDS extra. At about +300-400 str/qui/focus, you can see the values on pool useage actually help somewhat. 100 or 200 don't do much at all, not even worth your time clicking on anything to buff it. Not to mention most of the buffs are worthless under 100 value, thats more than half the profession. And there needs to be more food that buff all 3 in a set. What I mean, is buffing all regen stats, all action-use stats, all HAM. There are a few, but the only noticible one is at master, which buffs all your action-use stats. They need more throughout the chef profession tiers.
As far as regen (Con/stam/will).. it's not as drastic, but you still need a few hundred to notice the HAM regen'ing faster. Having +40-90 or so isn't gonna do much at all... especially when half those buffs last for like 2 mins. Big deal.
Food's need to be bumped up to at least 100's for even low tier foods, and bumped up a few hundred on tier 3/4/master foods. And the negative effects need to drop a lot too. Again, if you argue about experimenting, it's just not gonna help enough to make most of them worthwhile. And you can also argue "why not eat 2-3 of the same food", well, since some of them have those awful negative effects, you would usually need to eat something else with it not to screw yourself completely over.. meanwhile the durations aren't gonna lineup and you'll get screwed halfway thru the buff cycle.
- Z
Im not in the Chef class, just wanted to get more info about how food buffs works and give a little insight.
I know spice gives boost instantly, but wears off just as quick and for a certain time and has someminor side effects. Medics canboostsstats, but the medic needs to be there to give it you. You just can't carry around a majic pill to take when your out and about.
So with food, anyone can take them. You can take drinks and food at the same time to boost different stats. Nice.
..to continue on..
Food takes time to be in full effect, but does it wear off instantly when the time duration wears off?
I am definetly going to use spice when I need the quick extra boost right away, I would use the medic if one is available when i need it, And i would use food if the duration was longer, but a bigger boost than spice (secondary or primary), but....
How about making food/drink take longer to achieve the maximum potential of the food? Say you want to boost your strength with foord/drink for 1000. You take the food/drink, but it takessometime to get the max out of the food to your strength (slowly builds up), but then it slowly builds down. But during this duration your food/drink meter is filled up (by however much) by that food. So the duration could be longer than spice, but takes time to build up and wear off. Thats how i see food/drink being used.
So either a medic is available right there, or take some spice quickly/wears off quickly, or take some food for longer duration but you don't get the full effect of the food for a certain time (which should be longer than what spice lasts).
I hope this makes sense, but I like I said, I'm not a chef, just giving some input.
Nearly all food and drinks from 3rd, 4th and master tiers are seriously bugged, and you shouldn't be considerring their current stats as their real quality:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=chef&message.id=4298
"You are wrong to consider that your food will sell less if it lasted longer. I dunno about your server but on mine most people dont eat food becausepaying so much for a 100-400 second buff isnt worth it. If food buffs lasted longer, its value would go up and youll get a lot more people eating it than they are now. food buffs should last at least twice as long as they do now, setting them farther apart from the spices and seen as a better value. a display of our buffs somewhere would be useful too(like the ncu buffs from AO)"
I totally agree here. At the current duration of food, it really isn't worth the hassle to use the buff every7-8 minutes (longest duration I've seen so far). Any other MMO I've played that made you rebuff very frequently was frowned upon. 10 minutes for a buff should be the lowend, and up to an hour at least, though I'd really like to see it last even longer.
Food and drink should have longer duration.If the crafter experiments, itshould last hours, not seconds. A homemaker's meal should last about a half hour, a novice chef's should last at least an hour, and a master chef's dish should last several hours.
The other problem with buffs in general is that their effects aren't always obvious. It should be easy to tell when your stomach is empty (an icon on the desktop, as an option?) and when you consume a buff it should be easy to tell the effects. An imperceptibly moving HAM bar isn't good enough. The extra points need to be color coded or something. I love to use buffs, but often can't tell when they run out.
Jamga Gibbrad
Ranger/Pistoleer (ex-Smuggler, ex-Merchant)
Along the lines of showing a more descriptive and defined way of showing fullness would be to show the % of fullness that you are and if foods have different fill rates this % should be displayed when you look at the food (filling rate attribute - 0-100%) Having a toggable window that shows your buffs in effect now, the length of time they are in effect, and your fill rate would be a great boon to allow our consumers know more about their buff situation and when they need to refresh their buffs if they are still in need of them.
I disagree that *all* food should have a longer duration. There are some situations in which you wouldn't want or need a long duration. For example, imagine hypothetically that you are a combat profession character out soloing, and you need to heal up from an encounter. Youmay have some medic skills, but they won't be very high, and you have a relatively small "mind" bar.
Now, let's say you have some Starshine Surprise. (Admittedly, not a chef food, but one thatI have some experience in the use of.) If you drink the Starshine, you are going to recover your action points much faster because it is a stamina buff. However, you don't want it to last a long time, because it is a focus debuff (and therefore will inhibit your healing ability and/or could cause you problems with your special moves depending on what type of combat profession you have). The way to make Starshine more useful would be to increase the size of the buff, but not increase the duration.
I think it would be much more interesting to have foods with a variety of different effects, so that one could pick and choose depending on what one were doing. Ideally, there should be foods that play to the strengths of many different professions. A skilled chef would know the effects of each, and would be able to recommend appropriate dishes.
Duration is the biggest issue I believe with chef foods. People argued that Doctor's would be upset if we got better, longer buffs than them, but so what? How many doctor's do you know that can inject you with stuff that will make you more fit or smarter than if you eat and drink well every day? If your answer is more than 0, think about what they're giving, and ask yourself "Wouldn't that technically be a drug in the spice line?"
If you think about the reality of the situation, everyone needs food and drink to live. Now I'm not saying have an EQ style "you must eat and drink" flag made or any such nonsense, as I believe it to be way to tedious. This is only a game after all, what would be next... "The food you have eaten is ready to come out, please go home before you mess your armor."
Also, think about how body-builders and phyisical trainers plan someone's diet. They very first base thing they start with is food and drink. Eating and drinking healthy and the first and biggest step of any exercise program to make you faster, stronger, and more focused. Then comes suppliments, drugs and the like, to give that high end boost after you're in shape.
What's all this babble about? I was appalled when I saw Doctor buffs. Why in the world would ANY doctor have a drug that potentially doubles how healthy you are? In a realistic sense, this has abosolutely no grounds. I hate to use a cliche as an example, but take Jared the Subway guy. How many doctors were buffing him and making him better etc? None, he just changed what he ATE and DRANK, and look at the improvement... easily 3-4 times more in shape than he was. This is the basis for my arguement that food and drink buffs should easily be better than a what a Doctor has currently, though I do not dare shout nerf at Doctor buffs just yet and lighten the brevity of this post.
So to sum up, the base of the buff system should be food and drinks which should easily be at least the longest duration buffs, if not the longest AND the biggest (except for many spices, which are meant to be short and HUGE). Next should come bio-engineer enhanced foods, with bio-engineer item required to make. These would be the best of the best foods and drinks, but not the only high tier possibilites. Then next should be docotor buffs, and finally spices. If you think about how any athelete operates, this "from the ground up" explanation of how buffing should work makes total sense.
~Xiem, Expert Bartender, Shining Force
-3200, -1600 Tyrena, Corellia, Bloodfin
I have no really strong opinion on food and drink being more powerful or lasting longer. To be honest, I ama Chef only to mix drinks and tend the Bar at the Dearic Cantina (mostly for RP, not to make $$$). The one thing I feel strongly about is making Food and Drinks necessary for people. If someone doesn't eat or drink for long periods of time, would they not feel very hungry and thristy?, and wouldn't their abilities be effected by this? I liked how in EQ you had to eat or you would get fatigued. I'd like to see something like this in SWG.
Tymora Afin
Bartender at the Dearic Cantina
- Hajj